By Our Own Rules
The proverbial ink had just dried on my last blog when my colleague sent this article citing McKinsey and LeanIn.org’s latest study. The findings are not startling. Why can’t we seem to do anything about this? I posed three recommendations that came from McKinsey and several from speakers last week. But it made me think again about gender diversity, and it bugs me that I even have to carry this mantle in the year 2023. But here we are, and I will do it with grace and the voice necessary to make a dent.
Moons ago, I was asked by a colleague, a young male CEO whose start-up was taking off, when I thought there would be equity in the workplace. If we believe McKinsey — and I do! — it’ll be 100 years, and at that rate, it’s futile. I suggested to him it’ll happen when more women start their own businesses and set their own rules. Like this article cites, we have choices and great talent — why not choose to walk?
Corporate life is, like many other institutions in our world, competitive sport. It’s male-dominated and we’re playing a man’s game, running into their field and pushing boulders uphill. We can choose to start our own businesses, like Pat Mastandrea who started Cheyenne before selling it to SRI, and Wilma Jordan who founded JEGI. We started Outsell to fill a market void, in 1987, and with a two- and five-year-old at home, I needed to create a work environment that matched my vision of work and family. I didn’t see a way to raise a family from the perch of “big corporate,” so as I wrote in my book Magic in the Mundane, I decided to do it differently. My husband and I started our own company. We put $5k in the bank and never looked back.
There are women-led venture capital firms. Women-led engineering firms. We can support other entrepreneurs and we can rewrite the playbook. Personally, I’m committed to resurrecting our aspiring leaders’ community in 2023 and to mentoring young entrepreneurs. We will continue to measure our industry’s gender diversity in the C-suite. Our latest findings show that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have stalled. As we noted in our 2023 CEO Sentiment Survey, only 34% of leaders report they have diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in place, a number that did not budge from the year before. Further, only 28% of leaders stated they were soon planning to implement a program, a two-percentage-point decline from our previous findings. Here are our rankings of the top companies in our industry; see how they fare with gender diversity in their C-suites.
Just last week, I interviewed a young mother of two. She has a new home and a lot going on in her life. Her number one need is flexibility — no ifs, ands, or buts. It wasn’t an ask, it was a declaration. And it should be. No one should have to fight for flexibility in this day and age. I told her we’ve been working from home since 1998, and for us it’s not an experiment — it’s a way of life. We worked remotely when the world was on dial-up. I’m glad she asked for what she needed, wanted, and expected. Those who listen are tomorrow’s corporate winners.
We have work to do, but some of that work is to quit and build our own path. Some of it is to be relentless in our pursuit of building great places to work. After all, if we can’t provide a great working environment for 50% of the population, why would they stay?